We're not really mad geniuses. We're just a little miffed

Posts from the ‘POLIT(ICK!)S’ Category

I’ve got a lot of notions, today, but not a whole lot that’s going to coalesce into anything particularly focused. You’ve been warned (I’m so, so sorry). Caer Dave has been in the grips of illness and a distinct change in the weather. Last few days have been glorious, and we’re enjoying the almost-warmth. This has entailed more of Dave-staring-into-space level of writing, rather than Dave-put-words-on-screen writing, and I’m working on flipping the switch from one to the other. The Great Pulp Short Novel Experiment is ongoing, and I’m working hard to bring my mental space into alignment with renewed physical health. Pneumonia sucks. I don’t recommend it. Read more

A little while back someone on FB had a thread on the topic of why, in modern sf the systems of government of the future are usually feudal and hierarchical. I found this both interesting and amusing. THE FORLORN/MORNINGSTAR had various forms of feudal government – but it was on a colony planet where the level of technology had been knocked to at best medieval. Read more

Very first thing: if you haven’t read Amanda’s post from this morning, go read it. While this morality clause nonsense is dangerous to writers, and it’s certainly a CYA move on the part of the publishers including it in their contracts, I can’t help but wonder if it’s *also* being used as a means of further gatekeeping. “You’d better stay in the conservative closet, if you want to keep writing in your favorite world.” Read more

It’s a question I thought I’d left behind when I departed the Ivory Tower: Can someone who is not a [race/faith/sex/species] write about [race/faith/sex/species]? Do we have enough [race/sex/species] in our department or do we need more/fewer [race/sex/species]? OK, species isn’t really a problem in academia, but there are heated arguments over if a male can write Women’s History, if an Anglo can write about China, if So-and-so could be hired because HR had warned the Department that they had too many [whatevers] and might be investigated…and so on.

Fiction – we make stuff up, right? Space aliens, dragons in Shang Dynasty China, super high-tech societies hiding in Central Africa… And we write about it, and people read it or don’t.

Now my answer to who gets what share of the pie in publishing (actually in most things) is hey, let’s make a bigger pie.

That’s always seemed a sensible answer to me. I’ve spent years talking about ways to make reading more popular with as many people as possible. I can summarize many thousands of words into this: Give as many readers as possible what they enjoy. Help them find it, keep them coming back for more.